The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

FIVE consecutive days of power cuts across western New Providence left residents sleeping in cars, throwing out spoiled food and spending hundreds of dollars on generator fuel, as Bahamas Power and Light admitted its ageing system and contingency plans had been stretched by repeated failures.

In an extraordinary appeal that underscored the depth of the strain, BPL Chief Operating Officer Anthony Christie urged large businesses and government entities to reduce their reliance on the country’s only electricity grid so the utility could manage demand and improve service to other customers.

“We're also asking larger customers, government entities to assist us in managing their demands so that we can again control what we have and improve our service that we deliver to the customers,” Mr Christie said.

The latest outages followed Thursday’s island-wide blackout and continued through the holiday weekend, affecting Coral Harbour, Sea Beach, Sandyport, Tropical Gardens, Jacaranda, Gambier, Carmichael West and other communities.

BPL attributed the disruptions to tripped feeders and breakers, damaged power lines, cable faults, limited feeder capacity, fires and rotational power supply measures intended to prevent the system from becoming overloaded.

The sustained failures prompted some residents to call for outside assistance, saying the country appeared unable to contain what they described as an electricity crisis.

In Coral Harbour, residents endured outages lasting as long as eight or nine hours a day from Tuesday through yesterday.

Ms Marshall, who has lived in the area for 14 years, said the disruptions were the worst she had experienced and accused BPL of offering excuses instead of reliable service.

“Every day from Tuesday, we've been off. We haven't missed a day that we haven't been off, and not just one hour. We've been off for hours,” she said.

She said a television had stopped working and she had recently replaced a refrigerator, leaving her worried that more appliances would be damaged by the repeated loss and restoration of power.

She and her elderly mother sometimes stayed with her sister, who has a generator, to escape the heat.

Ms Marshall said residents should not have to organise their lives around whether BPL would keep the electricity on.

“The light bills aren’t decreasing,” she said. “Every month, our light bills increasing, doubling, and they can't explain it to us, but yet we can't get power.”

Some Coral Harbour residents were directed to collect complimentary ice at Bacardi Road yesterday as a temporary relief measure.

BPL reported that electricity had been fully restored to the community by 2.17pm, but further outages were recorded elsewhere later in the day.

In Sea Beach, residents said they had experienced repeated cuts since last Wednesday. Some were forced to discard spoiled groceries, while others described the conditions as inhumane.

One resident said she was too exhausted to attend church after spending the previous night without electricity.

“I couldn’t even go to church because I was so tired from being unable to sleep the night before because the power was out all night,” she said.

She urged the government and BPL to seek help from abroad if they could not resolve the crisis themselves.

“My thing is if they need help, ask for it,” she said. “Go to Florida and say, Florida, I need your help because we're having too many crises here in The Bahamas, and we're not able to deal with it. Ask for the help. It's not going to kill you. It's not going to embarrass you.”

Residents also rejected any assumption that homeowners could simply depend on generators, saying many landlords were unwilling to buy them.

For those who have generators, the cost of keeping them running has created another burden.

A Skyline resident said she and her husband had spent more than $500 on generator fuel during the prolonged outage — more than they had spent on groceries.

“It’s a shame that a nation has to go through this,” she said.

In Opulent Drive, Carmichael West, residents also reported power cuts lasting about nine hours a day from Thursday.

One woman said the heat and lack of sleep had affected her physically and emotionally.

“I had migraines attack,” she said while sitting in her car on Saturday morning. “I cried all last night. I prayed. I was like, ‘Please turn on the power.’ The sweat. I haven't slept. I'm frustrated now. I'm snapping at my family. I'm snapping at people because mentally, it's the heat.”

She called on BPL to secure rental generators from another country and urged Bahamians to protest.

“They could call some other country and get some rental generators,” she said. “We need to protest and shut the place down.”

BPL executive chairman Christina Alston acknowledged residents’ anger in a video released yesterday and apologised for the disruptions.

She said the utility was operating with ageing infrastructure and a power grid that had been under pressure for years.

Record-breaking heat, equipment failures and fires had placed further strain on the system, she said.

“I want you to know that we have a plan in place,” Ms Alston said. “We have contingency measures in place but these contingencies have limits. When several serious events occur in close succession, even the best black up plans can be stretched beyond what they are designed to withstand.”

Her admission followed warnings from BPL officials that New Providence’s electricity system was approaching capacity, with circuits overloaded and transformers operating near their limits.

Killarney MP Michela Barnett-Ellis said apologies were no longer sufficient and called for clear answers, decisive leadership and a credible recovery plan.

She said her office had been inundated with complaints from residents suffering financial losses and dangerous conditions during one of the hottest periods of the year.

“This affecting every aspect of daily life,” she said. “Families are losing groceries. Businesses are losing income. Employees are losing productive hours. Elderly residents, young children and those with medical conditions are enduring unbearable conditions during one of the hottest periods of the year.”

As of 5pm yesterday, BPL reported additional outages affecting Ferguson Road, Mount Pleasant, Shrimp Road and sections of West Bay Street because of cable faults and overgrown vegetation.

The utility also reported service disruptions in Andros and Abaco, where severe weather, damaged infrastructure and heavy power surges were blamed.